“That would be nice. Thanks.”
“You’ll do great,” he said with a wave as he walked away. “I’ll see you soon.”
When Gabriel was out of sight, she turned back to her desk. It was bare and clean, except for the phone, computer screen, and keyboard. Planting herself on the chair, she booted up the machine and waited for the screen to light up. Once it did, she opened the flashing mail icon on the desktop.
The message notification sound pinged, one right after the other and soon, the inbox was bursting with new emails. Seeing as Damon said it was hers, she clicked on the oldest unopened email from a few weeks back. It was some kind of advertisement from a clothing company, so she quickly junked that.
It took her about an hour to remove all the spam mail and unsubscribe the inbox from various email newsletters. The previous user of this inbox obviously loved online shopping. Who the heck uses company email for personal use? Even with her non-existent work experience, she knew better than that.
Now to tackle all the official-looking emails. First, she went through the oldest ones. Mostly it looked like requests and questions from employees and the general public. She categorized them for now since she really didn’t know how to answer them. Maybe she could ask Damon.
Apprehension filled her as she glanced at the door to his office. But what else was she supposed to do? He didn’t exactly leave her any instructions. She stood up from her desk and circled around to head into his office.
“Uh, Damon?” she asked, peeking her head through the doorway.
His head whipped toward her. “Don’t you know how to knock?”
The gruffness in his voice made her pull her head back. After a deep breath, she knocked on the door and poked her head through again. “Damon?”
Now he was scowling at her. “That’s not what I—never mind. What do you want?”
Did the man go through his day trying to find new ways of being unpleasant? Walking inside, she stopped in front of his desk. “I just wanted to know what you want me to do with the unread emails that aren’t junk or spam. I was cleaning out the general inbox and I have about twenty or thirty emails that need attention.”
His frown deepened. “Who told you to do that?”
“You did,” she huffed. “You said clear it out.”
“And I also told you that I would be sending you instructions on what needs to be done,” he said, irritated. “I’ve sent you six emails. What have you been doing the hour and a half?”
Her lips pursed together. “I was working the older emails since some of them have been sitting there for weeks.”
“Are you the boss, or am I?”
God, what was up with this man? “You are. I’ll get right on it,” she said curtly, then turned around and marched outside.
You need this job, she said to herself after taking a long, cleansing breath. It was this or going back to her father and Edward. Just thinking about that made Damon’s rudeness tolerable. Almost.
She sat back down and opened the newest six emails, all from Damon. Each one had a curt line or two, telling her what to do with the attached files. No “please” or “thank you” or even a “kind regards.” No, it was just “print this leave it in my inbox” or “proofread and forward to HR.”
Cracking her knuckles, she went right to work. Truly, it wasn’t difficult, but she could see why his last eight assistants quit. Not everyone needed their hand held or back patted all the time, but he could at least make the effort to be polite, like a normal human being.
But he wasn’t a normal human being. Damon was a bear shifter. The thought of him turning into a large furry beast made her shiver.
Finally, it was lunch time, and there were only two more emails from Damon she hadn’t yet opened and worked on. But that could wait. Surely, a one-hour noon break was allowed.
“Hey, Anna Victoria!”
Swiveling her seat around, she saw Gabriel approaching her. He wasn’t alone though, as a tall, blond man walked beside him. As expected, he, too, was fit and good-looking. “This is Daniel Rogers,” he introduced. “Don’t worry, he’s the nicest guy around here.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Daniel’s blue eyes twinkled. “And please, Gabriel’s exaggerating about being the nicest around here.”
“Yeah, well she met Anders first thing this morning,” Gabriel said, rolling his eyes.
She offered her hand, which Daniel shook. “Pleased to meet you, too, Daniel.” His grip was strong, but friendly.
“Ready for lunch?” Gabriel asked.
She glanced quickly at the door to Damon’s office, then shrugged. “Yeah.” Standing up, she grabbed her water bottle and brown paper bag that contained her tuna sandwich. “Let’s go.”
The two guys led her to the “cafeteria” in the back of the building, which was unlike any lunchroom she’d ever seen. For one thing, it was more like an outdoor picnic area surrounded by tall pine trees and an amazing view of the snowcapped mountains in the distance.
“Wow,” she exclaimed as she sat down on one of the benches. “Some cafeteria.”
“Working here certainly has its perks,” Daniel said.
Gabriel sidled up next to her. “Yeah, you get used to it.”
“Five years working here, and you still can’t appreciate nature.” Daniel shook his head.
“I like nature well enough, but I’m not going to roll around in it and pretend it’s the best thing ever,” he shrugged. “Anyway, why don’t you go and grab some food, and I’ll keep Anna Victoria company?”
As Daniel nodded in agreement and walked toward the counter, Gabriel turned to her. “So, how was your morning?”
She blew out a breath, sending a stray lock of hair in her eyes flying. “I wish I could say it was good, but you did warn me.” She relayed what happened with Damon. “It’s like he hates
